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ATMOS ENERGY 2009 SUMMARY ANNUAL REPORT | 5
Best: That’s right, Kim. In
the late 1970s, Americans
were told the country was running out of natural gas. Congress even
passed a law that precluded using natural gas as a boiler fuel for
big applications like making electricity and industrial steam. The
politicians basically were claiming that Americans couldn’t count on
natural gas for the long term. Well, they were wrong. People began
to conserve; new natural gas fields were discovered; and natural gas
companies, pipelines and utilities kept gas flowing to homes and
businesses. During the Reagan administration, that act was repealed.
And, since then, we have returned to using natural gas for many
purposes.
What are some of the benefits of natural gas?
Best: Natural gas is naturally friendly to the environment. It comes
right out of the ground, ready to use; so, there’s no dirty processing
or transportation byproducts. Its chemical composition makes it the
most environmentally sensitive fossil fuel. When it’s burned, natural
gas emits half the carbon dioxide and less than one two-thousandth
the sulfur dioxide of coal.
If your home has gas logs in the fireplace or a gas cooktop in
the kitchen, you intuitively know gas is clean. Now, imagine if you
had a coal fireplace or a coal-burning stove. Thankfully, we live in
the 21st century and we don’t burn coal in our homes anymore.
Many people, however, don’t know that electricity isn’t a fuel
and that, when you flip a light switch on, more than half of the
electricity we use is generated by burning coal. Add to that the
carbon emissions required to mine coal and transport it, and you
can imagine coal has a pretty large carbon footprint.